Beijing weather an everyday guessing game

Olympic Journal

Published 4:00 am, Monday, August 18, 2008

Figuring out the weather in this here Beijing-land is a losing proposition. It changes from day to day, from what I hear based on the meteorological whims of the weather gods.

Rain visited the Olympic city a few days ago and it was wonderful. I got soaked walking from the Water Cube to the press center and I couldn't have been happier. Anything that keeps the lousy stinking heat and humidity down is all right with me. Snow? Sleet? Hail? Bring 'em on.

Every morning I look out the window of my room in C-Block, home of the baddest dudes in Green (Acres) Homeland North Star (at Tahoe) Media Village, and try to see what the day will bring.

Enervating heat?

Pollution like you've never seen pollution before?

Rain, blessed rain?

Eerie, soupy overcast skies, leaden and looming?

Stifling, sticking, spongy humidity?

Such are the vagaries here. The first week was the worst, with brutal heat and humidity that turned shirts into festering bar rags. Yuck.

Yet, there have been a couple Blue Sky Days in a city known for smoggy skies that look like diseased oatmeal. A few days back, there were even consecutive BSDs that made looking into the atmosphere a pleasure.

Everyone in the outdoor press seating area of the Bird's Nest on Sunday night was given a poncho in the event those overcast skies let loose. The wrapper on my stylish green poncho says "one size fits all," a laughable term for us plus-size devils. We'll see about that.

Seems like the pollution, so feared and much written about before the Games, will not be the telling factor many people thought it would be. Several American athletes queried on the subject said air quality has not been an issue with them and indeed, most days in the last week seemed tolerable.

So we all go about our business, breathing the same air. Taking a deep breath just now, I felt no obvious ill effects in my lungs. I can recall growing up in Los Angeles in the years before pollution controls were enacted and a deep breath felt like a dagger had been plunged into my teenage lungs.

Inveterate cynic that I am, I'm still waiting for the Smog Monster to invade Beijing and make the sun merely a rumor. There were days like that a week ago where the skies looked post-apocalyptic.

Really, the way to deal with the buffet spread of weather conditions here in the Olympic city is to be surprised, each day either a gift or a curse from the weather gods.